philosophy quotes

“I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. ”

“There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.”

“I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. ”

— Stephen Hawking

“Greek philosophy seems to have met with something with which a good tragedy is not supposed to meet, namely, a dull ending. ”

“
Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.
”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a necessary thing: it elevates man to the plane of God.”

— Victor Hugo

“Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy. ”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“I really believe in the philosophy that you create your own universe. I'm just trying to create a good one for myself. ”

“Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else. ”

“Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

“One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes... and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.”

— Eleanor Roosevelt

“The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.”

— William James

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.”

— Clive Staples Lewis

“Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.”

— Henry Miller

“Philosophy is common sense with big words.”

— James Madison

“To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Ronald Reagan was a president of strength. His philosophy was a philosophy of strength - a strong military, a strong economy and strong families.”

— Mitt Romney

“My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose - somehow we win out.”

— Ronald Reagan

“Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.”

— Bertrand Russell

“Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.”

— Bertrand Russell

“The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.”

— Bertrand Russell

“The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.”

— Bertrand Russell

“I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.”

— Bertrand Russell

“To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.”

— Bertrand Russell

“I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.”

— Bertrand Russell

“A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.”

— Francis Bacon

“Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.”

— Francis Bacon

“Hope founded upon a human being, a man-made philosophy or any institution is always misplaced... because these things are unreliable and fleeting.”

— Charles Stanley

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